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Andrew Niccol’s film of “The Host” starts so well that, when it suddenly slows to a crawl 20 minutes later, your impulse is to give it some slack – to let it find its feet and get back on track.

Unfortunately, it never does.

So what you end up with is a drippy, new-agey sci-fi tale that spends a lot of time talking while making very little actually happen.

The film is based on a novel by Stephenie Meyer, author of the “Twilight” books and, one assumes, aimed at the same moony-eyed teen audience. It’s a romance, of course, but one that’s of two minds – and yet winds up being virtually mindless.

It’s not hard to see Niccol’s attraction to the material. He is, after all, the writer behind such sci-fi tales as “The Truman Show,” “In Time” and “Gattaca,” the latter being one of the more underrated sci-fi tales of the 1990s. It’s also a film this one resembles at times in its vision of a demonically calm future and its eye for futuristic locations that exist in the present.

Instead of a human-created dystopia, however, this futuristic tale takes place after an alien invasion from outer space. The invaders look a little like palm-sized fiber-optic centipedes and, as in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” they take over human hosts – get it? – using their bodies as homes, rather than templates. Then they go on living in human form, ridding the planet of pollution, war, disease and other forms of pestilence.

Which all sounds pretty good. But there are a few hold-outs: a resistance movement of humans who, bless them, want no part of the hive-mind. (Apparently they’ve never heard of Fox News Channel).

One of these resisters, the portentously named Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan), is the first such human we glimpse, running from Seekers. They’re the enforcers of the new order; you can tell which people are aliens in human form by the fluorescent blue ring within the iris of their eyes.

The Seekers seem like amiable sorts: “Be careful,” one says calmy as Melanie dodges them. To escape them, she jumps through a window from a great height, seemingly to her death. But the aliens possess strong medicine; they heal her body, then implant a new “soul” (the aforementioned centipede) in her neck.

The soul says its name is “Wanderer” (later shortened to Wanda, as though trying to say her name with a Louisiana accent). But much to Wanderer’s surprise, Melanie’s mind refuses to relinquish control of her body. She talks to Wanda in her head; it’s a little like Lily Tomlin conversing with Steve Martin in “All of Me,” but without the comic disconnect between brain and body.

Melanie gets Wanda to go drive them into the New Mexico desert, where they’re found by the remnants of Melanie’s family, led by her Uncle Jeb (a bemused looking William Hurt), her little brother and her former boyfriend Jared (Max Irons, son of Jeremy).

But they can only see her as an alien and a threat – except the wise Jeb. Eventually, Melanie figures out how to let them know that she’s still alive inside Wanda. Which takes some doing, in spite of the fact that she looks the same (except for those “Children of the Damned” eyes) and, basically acts the same, except for that flat alien affect.

What plot there is for the rest of the movie – which is most of it – well, frankly, there isn’t much. Melanie/Wanda wants to prove she’s still human inside and reconnects with Jared, as well as another guy. There are moments of contrived jeopardy but mostly there’s a lot of talk about not very much.

It’s pseudo-philosophical sci-fi, the kind that wants to be about ideas, rather than story. Except there really aren’t any ideas. Indeed, other than the fact that all the Seekers wear white and the alien-invaded humans all act like they’re on high doses of Prozac (or strong medicinal marijuana), there doesn’t seem to be a lot of downside to being a host.

Except, of course, for that ornery free-will business. And, given the state of our national and international discourse today, well, how’s that working out for us? So, as I said, it’s a movie of two minds (which is also a joke that Wanda/Melanie makes about herself), one acted with the earnestness of an afterschool special.

On the one hand, it wants to convince us that something very deep and serious is going on as the humans fight to survive as an uncontaminated species.

On the other hand, Niccol never makes it seem particularly awful to be controlled by an alien. If anything, they appear to have made Earth a better world by wiping the slate clean.

Which makes us Earthlings seem like ungrateful churls. And that sort of neutralizes the whole point of “The Host,” wouldn’t you say?

3 Responses to “‘The Host’: Come again?”

I understand why you were not particularly impressed with this movie, but I loved it, especially the second time. I thought it was beautiful, and I don’t mind romance, although I know plenty of people who roll their eyes at it. I just don’t see the problem in romance. I really enjoyed The Host, which gives a twist compared to all the other paranormal romances coming out now. 8/10 for me.

First, let me say that I read the book. Correction: I suffered through the book. Although, Mrs. Meyers can string sentences along (my eyes did not bleed as has happened with other sci-fi works I’ve read), she has no idea how to develop original characters. Each and everyone of the characters in “The Host” were stock characters taken out of typical post-apocalyptic works. Let’s see there is the tough-as-nails old man who leads with pluck and gumption and just “knows” our heroine is innocent. There is our heroine who is just them embodiment of all that is good and pure despite the trials she’s endured in this hellish dystopia. There is the handsome love interest who has suffered a devastating loss and through the inherent goodness of our heroine will learn to love again. The teenager who is wise beyond his years. The bitchy women who just “know” there’s something wrong with our heroine and do everything to set her up to fail. Yeah, nothing original there.

Oh and speaking of characters, in the book the lead characters were all full-grown adults. Although their ages were not specified, I got the impression that they were at least mid-to-late thirties. The movie makes it look like they just graduated high school. The only teenager was Melanie/Wanda’s nephew. So I guess we can see that even the Hollywood Establishment realizes Mrs. Meyers’ stories will only appeal to the teenie bopper crowd despite this being her first “adult” fiction.

After suffering through this drivel, I have no intention of seeing this movie. For a far superior sci-fi movie with a similar plot, go rent “Invasion” with Nicole Kidman & Daniel Craig. It tackles the same themes but with less misogyny. (Oops, I forgot to mention that in the book Melanie/Wanda does not do anything without a man telling her what to do, even eat breakfast. Talk about setting the Women’s Movement back!)

I greatly feared that they would “Twilight” this book, and it sounds like they did. Actually, the book was released for an adult, rather than a YA audience. The book was better written than the Twilight saga (which was far better than the movies, but still, genre pap). However, I take issue with the way Ms. Meyers introduces her particular brand of Christian/Mormom philosophy into each of her books. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but from the reviews, I will probably wait for it on cable. There was so much they could have done with the book. However, the iridescent blue eyes make me think of Edwards “sun sparkles” in Twilight. I just don’t think Meyers transfers well to the screen.